What the Democratic and Republican News Organizations Don’t Want You to Know; Trump’s Tax Cut Plan is Another “Supply Side” Disaster for the USA as Income and Wealth Inequality Will Accelerate

President Donald Trump has proposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations, which is another way of saying Trump wants tax cuts for the rich and then more tax cuts for the rich. In other words, the person who will most likely benefit from the Donald Trump tax cuts is billionaire Donald Trump. The 99 percent will get virtually nothing. In other words, Trump’s tax plan is designed to create greater income and wealth inequality in a nation that already has the most income and wealth inequality among the industrialized nations.

You will note in the video above, while they make some good points about Trump’s tax cuts for the rich, the folks at MSNBC fail to mention growing income and wealth inequality because the Wall Street controlled Democratic leadership doesn’t want its station MSNBC to mention it any more than the billionaires who control the Republican Party want their news outlets to mention it. Currently, the rich steal anywhere from 24 to 38 percent of all income produced in the United States, compared to 8 percent in 1980. In addition, the richest 10 percent of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, a historic and still growing record.

As corporations get tax cuts, much of those tax savings will go to the rich via higher corporate profits, rising dividends, and surging stock prices. The rest of us will suffer the consequences. In addition, of course, corporations will have more money to invest, supposedly to create jobs, as if giving corporations tax cuts will magically increase consumer demand. That’s not likely. So what will they invest in?

Historically, US corporations buy other corporations, especially rivals, when they receive tax cuts or higher profits. This, of course, creates redundancies in a variety of job areas, such as accounting and computer technicians. When mergers occur, employees are the first thing to go in order to eliminate those redundancies. Of course, to help pay for these mergers, income will be redistributed from those who work for a living to the idle rich as US jobs are exported to low-wage nations and the difference between the higher paying US jobs and the new lower wage jobs in China, India and elsewhere will fuel corporate profits, and push up dividends and share prices. This fuels the bank portfolios of the rich, and this obviously creates greater income inequality. That’s what those free trade treaties have been negotiated to do, and Democrats, like Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, are not stupid little boys and girls who are ignorant of this fact.

This is one of the reasons why there is not a shred of evidence that supply-side economics, otherwise known as tax cuts for the rich, has ever created a single job, but there is plenty of evidence tax cuts for the rich and corporations have destroyed US jobs. Under President George W. Bush, tax cuts were enacted for the rich, making certain that the growth in jobs and real wages were negative, the only time in US history that has occurred under a single president since Republican Herbert Hoover.

Naturally, there are other things the Republicans are refusing to mention.

Gary Markstein / Creators Syndicate

There will be an increased federal deficit of $2.5 trillion, which is typical under irresponsible Republican administrations and Congress, just like the Reagan years, and the other twelve years under the Bush presidents. Naturally, cutbacks in federal spending will be proposed.

Republicans and some Democrats will insist the US is not spending a sufficient number of dollars on its military, so that will not be subject to reductions. The US spends more on the military than the next 25 nations combined, 24 of whom are US allies, but clearly, that’s insufficient because US military spending is quite profitable. However, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other less profitable programs that help the politically powerless will be on the table for cuts if Trump’s tax cuts for the rich sails through Congress.

The rich, of course, have stolen just about all real income and wealth increases over the last thirty-five years, thanks to their financial abilities to corrupt both major political parties and the federal government in the process. Naturally, their dirty money has also corrupted most state and city governments. So, obviously, the financial and political deck is completely stacked against the 99 percent.

Luckily, the Democrats in the US Senate will object to this irresponsible behavior because the billionaires of Wall Street who control the party will object to it. That’s the only reason why Democratic senators like Ron Wyden will likely oppose the legislation. Even some Republicans may oppose Trump’s tax plan because it is completely against the national interest, that is if one assumes the citizens of the United States who make up 99 percent of the population are a part of that national interest.

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How Does the US Middle Class Compare to Europe?

Income inequality is getting worse in the United States, and some new data from Pew Research shows this to be true.

An analysis that weighs the U.S. against 11 countries in Western Europe shows that America holds the tiniest middle class, with just 59% of the United States’ population falling between rich and poor on the income scale. By contrast, 72% of the German population falls into that middle-income bracket — defined by Pew to be between two-thirds the country’s median income and double the median — as does 80% of the Danish population.

“Countries with higher income inequality tend to have smaller middle classes,” said Rakesh Kochhar, the associate director of research at Pew Research Center. The US rates 93rd worst when it comes to income inequality. That’s because the vast majority of new income in the United States is being redistributed from the 99 to the 1 percent, and because the rich control virtually all levers of government that determines income and wealth redistribution.

Tens of millions of US jobs have been exported thanks to Free Trade Treaties since 1990, for example. The difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new lower third world wages with no-benefits go straight from the pockets of the middle class to the super wealthy via higher corporate profits, soaring share prices, and surging dividends.

There’s one interesting wrinkle to the Pew data: While the U.S. middle-income segment is smaller than in European countries, it takes a higher income overall to make it into that group. The median income for a middle-class household in Italy is $35,608. It’s $44,000 in France and $46,000 in Denmark.

But in the United States, it’s $60,084. That, however, simply measures how badly income inequality has become in the US since income inequality in the US badly skews the data. Pew defines the middle class to be between two-thirds the country’s median income and double the median. The median is the midpoint. So if the highest earner in a nation earns $1.2 billion a year and the lowest worker earns $50,000, the midpoint is $599,950,000.

The median is the midpoint. So if the highest earner in a nation earns $1.2 billion a year and the lowest worker earns $50,000, the midpoint between the two is $599,950,000. Whereas, if the highest earner garners $1 million while the lowest worker earns $100,000, then the median income is $450,000. The higher income inequality, the more money it takes to get into the middle class. The less income inequality is, the less cash it takes to be in the middle class.

 

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Why Educational Services Has Experienced the Most Job Growth in an Economy Dominated By the Financial Needs of the 1 Percent

In an economy dominated by the financial desires of the 1 percent, why has educational services experienced the most job growth over the last twenty-five years?

Look at the list below. Scroll down toward the bottom. There you have manufacturing, in negative job growth, and once the biggest employer in the United States a scant sixty years ago. Those jobs have experienced negative growth. That’s because US corporations have exported tens of millions of them over the course of the last thirty-five years, forcing more and more people to seek training in other occupations.

As the economy has redistributed trillions upon trillions of dollars to the super wealthy via the exporting of jobs, the demand for goods and services has declined per capita. The result is a lack of job growth, sending more and more students into the university systems. That’s because the US population continues to grow.

80-90 percent of all US population growth over the last thirty or so years has been driven by immigration. This has kept the demand for K-12 teachers higher than it would with no or little immigration, thus fueling educational services.

Notice the top six places in US job growth is in services. This says a lot, and none of it is good. Services are the top employers, but all rest on construction, mining, farming and manufacturing since the wealth of all nations is the things created by their people.

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Bernie Sanders on the Biggest Welfare Recipients in US history; And guess who those welfare scammers gave over $300,000 to in a single campaign contribution

Bernie Sanders has voiced complaint over the biggest welfare recipients in the USA. Even Charles Koch has complained in concurrence with Bernie. Big business receives billions of subsidies and tax breaks. This goes to ensure CEO raises, and rising corporate profits. In turn, the rising earnings increases corporate dividends and surging share prices, which almost exclusively benefit the rich at tax payer expense. In other words, government subsidies and tax breaks redistribute income from the taxpayers to the rich.

Surging dividends increase the incomes of the rich, while rocketing share prices enhance their wealth, and all at the expense of the 99 percent.

In addition, Walmart employees are paid so little the government must pay out over $7 billion for welfare, food stamps and health care to Walmart employees. This subsidizes the Walton family at the expense of taxpayers on the Federal, state and local levels.

These subsidies are pushing wages down because Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages to attract employees in the absence of subsidies for their employees.

This means the Walton family, perhaps the richest in the USA, is among the biggest welfare recipients in USA history.

Welfare Queen Alice Walton, who ranks #12 in the Forbes 400 with more than $32 billion in personal assets, gave $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund — one of the funds backing Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign. While the donation was made in December of 2015, the record of her contribution wasn’t made public until a week ago.

The corporate news media, which is in the tank for Wall Street’s presidential candidate, has taken great care to not mention this contribution, which might alarm the underlying voting people who intend to vote for Hillary.

This donation comes at a time when the former First Lady and Secretary of State is trying to distance herself from her past, like referring to black youth as “super-predators,” proudly identifying as a “Goldwater girl” in her first foray into politics, and sitting on the board of Walmart for 6 years between 1986 and 1992.

This astonishing six-figure donation from one of the owners of a company widely-known for its oppressive labor practices comes in stark contrast to her campaign’s portrayal of the former New York senator as a champion of workers. Clinton’s campaign has been endorsed by the central leadership of multiple labor unions, like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the National Education Association (NEA).

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How Much Have Things Changed in 40 Years Because of Redistributing Middle Class Income to the Super Rich? Let’s Take a Look at Higher Education

One of those older folks on Facebook, who calls himself Jimmy Rat, ridiculed Bernie Sanders supporters for wanting free college education on one of his posts. That guy got schooled.

Rat showed a photo of a military recruiting station, and called upon Sanders supporters to sign up and get their free education there. Then somebody pointed out that he wasn’t looking for a free education, but an affordable one, like Rat’s generation had. Then Jimmy Rat retorted with some ultra bull shit, and that triggered an interesting and well thought out response from the other guy, who only wants the same deal that Jimmy Rat and his generation had back in the day.

That guy buried Jimmy Rat with an avalanche of statistics and facts. He showed the annual tuition for Yale in 1970 was $2500, compared to $45,000 nowadays. He also showed the minimum wage in 1970 could purchase many more things than the minimum wage can today. There are a few things this person didn’t mention.

In 1970, 61 percent of US adults were located right there in the middle class. Nowadays, less than 50 percent of adults are in the middle class. In 1970, the 1 percent took home only 8 percent of the total annual income produced in the United States compared to 37 percent today. Those figures are intertwined with each other, because the rich have used the federal government to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent. So those two figures are the primary reasons why Jimmy Rat’s generation had it so much better than today.

Then Jimmy’s generation made all the wrong choices, according to the respondent, and the result is the sole reason why US higher education costs so much more today than in 1970, why the social security trust fund will lose its surplus by 2041, why corruption is rampant in both major political parties, and so much more.

Check out the entire exchange on Facebook below.

 

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Why Is President Obama Helping the Republicans Retain the Senate and the House?

If President Obama was a serious Democratic Party president, and he wanted to wipe out Republican Party majorities in the US house and senate, it would be a simple thing to do.

Republican Party leaders, such as Wall Street Senator’s Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch, are desperate to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passed through congress. The TPP is a massive scam to redistribute income and political power from the 99 to the 1 percent. It involves 11 nations around the Pacific Rim. The TPP will export hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions upon millions (which is more likely), of US jobs to China and Vietnam (Click https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/the-trans-pacific-partnership-the-op-ed-the-liberal-and-conservative-corporate-media-doesnt-want-you-to-see/. The difference between the old US higher wages and the new lower wages over there will go straight into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate earnings, share prices and dividends. The stock markets will then shoot up, like what occurred under the same income redistribution scam called NAFTA.

Obama should have Democratic Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden introduce the TPP out of committee and into the senate for debate. Wyden is a long time supporter of redistributing income, wealth and political power from the 99 to the 1 percent. That’s why I call him Wall Street Ronnie. Republicans will try to block the TPP in committee for a simple reason.

This is an election year and there are more Republican seats up for grabs in the senate than there are Democrats. Voting yes for the TPP before the elections in November will be a deathblow to any candidate who votes yes, except for Wyden, who has a carefully and fraudulently cultivated reputation for caring about the aged, the poor, and the middle class, while carefully voting to redistribute their income to the 1 percent time and time again.

Obama, however, wants the TPP badly, and so most likely will wait with his Republican Wall Street allies until after the November elections to bring the TPP out of committee.

On the other hand, the economic winds already began shifting toward recession late last summer. Those winds will become more readily apparent by November to the great mass of US citizens. The president, Wyden and the Republican leadership will try to ram the TPP through congress then, but this international income and political power redistribution scam will come under intense opposition the like of which has not been seen for decades.

The result should be the death of the TPP, but only if pressure is continued until the bitter end, because most Republicans and Democrats in the US house and senate work for the 1 percent, and against the interests of the 99 percent. Anything to keep those corporate share prices rising, and those campaign contributions, lobbying jobs, vacations and other perks coming.

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The Trans Pacific Partnership: The Most Massive International Income Redistribution Scam, Falsely Marketed as a Trade Agreement, Is Officially Complete: The Coming of the Worst Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression

On Feb 4, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman  joined other trade ministers from throughout the Pacific Rim in signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in New Zealand. Signing is not the same as ratifying. What the signing means is that the negotiations are concluded; the text is done; and that the TPP can now be submitted for a Fast Tracked vote in Congress at almost any time. Because of Fast Track legislation pushed President Obama, Wall Street Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, Wall Street Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton, and almost all the Republican Party except a few, such as US Senator Jeff Sessions.

The TPP is the largest international income redistribution treaty ever concocted. It will ship millions of US jobs to China and Vietnam, circumvent US law and the US Constitution, and raise prices for US citizens and citizens throughout the area of the Pacific on such things as medicines. The difference between the old higher US wages and the new lower wages, and the difference between the old lower prices and the new higher prices, will go straight into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate profits, rising share prices, and soaring dividends. The TPP will also drive millions of immigrants from Latin America to the USA illegally because their jobs will be shipped to Vietnam and China too, and they won’t have anyplace else to go.

Currently, the 1 percent steal about 37 percent of all the income produced yearly in the USA, up from 8 percent in 1980. Wyden, Obama, Clinton and almost the entire Republican Party intend to redistribute even more to the 1 percent with the TPP. And here we are facing the unfolding storm of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. I’ve been watching it unfold since last summer. It’s picking up steam, and officially should hit somewhere between September 2016 and June 2017. The entire US manufacturing sector has been in recession, for example, since November 2015.

It’s critical that Congress is hearing strong constituent opposition to the TPP right now. Please write your Members of Congress and urge them to come out publicly against the TPP.

For the better part of a decade, we have told our representatives we want a “Fair Deal or No Deal” on Trans-Pacific trade. Now that the text is finalized and changes are all-but-impossible, it’s clear that — while a handful of well-connected corporations got a more-than-fair deal for themselves — for everyone else, the TPP would be a disaster for the economy, the environment and public health.

The TPP Is Bad for Jobs & Wages
As you would expect from a deal negotiated with hundreds of corporate advisors, while the public and the press were shut out, if enacted, the TPP would offshore good-paying American jobs, lower wages and increase inequality by forcing Americans into competition with highly-exploited workers abroad paid less than 65 cents an hour.

The TPP’s much-touted new labor standards are so abysmally weak that countries could literally set their minimum wage at $1/day and their maximum hours of work at 24/day and still be in compliance. The pact simply does not do enough to protect jobs at home or human rights abroad. Instead, it would only accelerate the global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions.

On top of that, the TPP is so poorly negotiated that it contains a massive backdoor for products that are assembled mostly from parts made in third-party countries such as China, with no TPP obligations whatsoever, to enter the US duty free.

The TPP will also force China to manipulate its currency by at least 15 percent. This increases the profits of US corporations manufacturing products in China, and exporting them to the USA. This will compel many US companies to export jobs to China since the currency manipulation will increase the profits of these companies from 36 to 140 percent.

Tell Congress we can’t afford a massive new job-killing, wage-suppressing trade deal.

The TPP Is Bad for Food Safety
The TPP would flood the United States with unsafe foods. Going beyond previous trade deals, the TPP includes first-of-its-kind language allowing corporations to challenge both U.S. food inspection protocols and individual food inspection decisions.

Consumer advocates have warned the TPP could have a major chilling effect on efforts to keep out unsafe foods that don’t meet the same standards that U.S. farmers, ranchers and other producers are required to meet.

Tell Congress we can’t afford a trade deal that jeopardizes the safety of the food we feed our families.

The TPP Is Bad for the Environment
The TPP would actually roll back environmental enforcement provisions found in all U.S. trade agreements since the George W. Bush administration, requiring enforcement of only one out of the seven environmental treaties covered by Bush-era trade agreements.

Beyond just failing to mention the term “climate change” in its thousands of pages, the TPP would also provide corporations with new tools for attacking environmental and consumer protections, while simultaneously increasing the export of climate-disrupting fossil fuels.

Tell Congress we can’t afford a trade deal that threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink and the future we leave for our children and grandchildren.

The TPP Is Bad for Access to Medicine
Many of the TPP’s intellectual property provisions would effectively delay the introduction of low-cost generic medications, increasing health care prices and reducing access to medicine both at home and abroad.

The TPP contains requirements that TPP nations allow additional 20-year patents for new uses of drugs already under patent, among other rules that would promote the “evergreening” of patent monopolies. Other TPP provisions may enable pharmaceutical companies to challenge Medicare drug listing decisions, Medicaid reimbursements and constrain future U.S. policy reforms to reduce healthcare costs.

Tell Congress we can’t afford a trade deal that limits access to life-saving generic medications.

The TPP Is Bad for Human Rights
The TPP includes several notorious violators of international human rights, such as Brunei, where LGBT individuals and single mothers can be stoned to death under Sharia law and Malaysia where huge numbers of ethnic minorities are trafficked through the jungle in modern slavery.

Tell Congress we can’t afford to ignore the actions of notorious human rights abusers.

Too many Congress members have hemmed and hawed about the TPP, refusing to state their position. Now that the text has been public for months, and that the agreement has actually been signed, the time for fence-sitting is over. Please contact your Members of Congress now and urge them to oppose the TPP.

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New Report Shows 62 People Own More Wealth Than Half the World’s Population, And the US Government and Politicians From Both Political Parties Intend to Pass Legislation Ensuring the 62 Get More of the World’s Wealth and Income

According to a new report by the Oxfam Institute, An Economy for the 1 Percent, the richest 62 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the world’s population.

According to Oxfam, “The gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes. Credit Suisse recently revealed that the richest 1% have now accumulated more wealth than the rest of the world put together. 

Meanwhile, the wealth owned by the bottom half of humanity has fallen by a trillion dollars in the past five years. This is just the latest evidence that today we live in a world with levels of inequality we may not have seen for over a century. An Economy for the 1% looks at how this has happened, and why, as well as setting out shocking new evidence of an inequality crisis that is out of control. Oxfam has calculated that:

1.  In 2015, just 62 individuals had the same wealth as 3.6

 billion people at the bottom half of humanity. This figure is down from 388 individuals as recently as 2010.

2.  The wealth of the richest 62 people has risen by 44% in the five years since 2010–that’s an increase of more than half a trillion dollars ($542 billion), to $1.76 trillion.

3.  Meanwhile, the wealth of the bottom half fell by just over a trillion dollars in the same period–a drop of 41%.

4.  Since the turn of the century, the poorest half of the world’s population has received just 1% of the total increase in global wealth, while half of that increase has gone to the top 1%.

5.  The average annual income of the poorest 10% of people in the world has risen by less than $3 each year in almost a quarter of a century. Their daily income has risen by less than a single cent every year

The Oxfam report doesn’t mention everything the rich have been able to purchase with their ill-gotten robberies, such as both major political parties in the USA, as well as in most other nations. Most government regulatory agencies throughout the world, such as the USDA, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, have also been bought and  managed by the 1 percent.

This corruption of governments is precisely why President Obama and Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden want to continue to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent, a process that has been ongoing in the United States since Ronald Reagan became president.

Every US senator, President Obama, and most members of the US house of representatives know, or example, that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will force China to manipulate its currency vis-a-vis the US dollar by 15 percent, if this income redistribution agreement is rammed through congress. This will roughly double the profits of US corporations manufacturing things in China who happen to export these items to the United States, such as Dell, Microsoft, Nike, Adidas, Black and Decker, Gerber, and hundreds of others.

By the same process, this will make US exports to China profit losers, costing millions of US export jobs. But this forced currency manipulation will also encourage US companies who manufacture things for sale in the USA, as well as for export to nations other than China, to export millions of US jobs to China. What Corporate Chief Executive Officer wouldn’t export whatever jobs they could to China if their profits would double by doing so?

Every manufacturing job supports three other jobs, like the local waitress, teacher, plant manager, fire fighter, accountant, bookkeeper, retail clerk, plumber, contractor, and more. So that the exportation of say 5 million jobs will result in the loss of another 15 million. However, it is more than likely that the TPP will gut most of whatever is left of the US middle class by tens of millions.

Right now, 50 percent of US adults are considered middle class, down from 61 percent in 1970. Within three years of the enactment of the TPP, only 30-40 percent, or less, of US adults will be considered middle class. And that’s how the rich get richer.

When a corporation exports jobs, the difference between the old higher US pay and the new lower Chinese or Vietnamese pay goes straight into the pockets of the 1 percent via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices and surging dividends. The job losers might get several months of unemployment checks, if they’re lucky.

In other words, the TPP is a massive scam to force US companies to ship millions of US jobs to China, and gutting what remains of the US middle class, in the process. Wall Street senator’s such as Ron Wyden, Orrin Hatch and Mitch McConnell, as well as President Obama, are 100 percent behind this scam.

According to Oxfam, “The global inequality crisis is reaching new extremes. The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Power and privilege is being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest (such as the TPP). A global network of tax havens further enables the richest individuals to hide $7.6 trillion. The fight against poverty will not be won until the inequality crisis is tackled.”

The TPP will make income and wealth inequality grow. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what is has been negotiated to do.

 

 

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New Study: The Middle Class is Losing Ground As Wall Street Senator’s Ron Wyden, Mitch McConnell, Orrin Hatch and Others Continue to Use the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve to Redistribute Middle Class Income and Wealth to the 1 Percent

A new study by the Pew Research Center shows the US middle class has shrunk from 62 percent of the adult population in 1970 to 50 percent today. In addition, middle class income has shrunk 4 percent since 2000. And all of this has occurred with Democratic Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, one the architects on the war against the middle class, leading the charge against the middle class on behalf of the 1 percent, first in the US congress, and lately in the US senate.

Every president since Ronald Reagan has been in on this scam. For the past twenty years, Wyden has been the number one congressional champion of income and wealth redistribution scams, such as NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership. The Federal Reserve has bailed out rich investors time after time, and most recently raised interest rates. The latter raised the interest on loans the 99 percent pay to the banks, which will enrich the banks. This action will increase bank profits, raised dividends to the rich folks who own shares of the banks, and raise share prices. Guess who benefits, and guess who loses. And it’s worse than the chart below shows.

If you subtract the 1 percent with its 37 percent of total national income, the middle class looks considerably smaller than the above graph shows. The median income would shift to the left considerably, and be smaller in the process. Below is a graph based on actual income distribution in which the 1 percent are stealing 37 percent of all income in 2015 compared to just 8 percent in 1980.

Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden has led and is still leading the attack of the 1 percent against the middle class, and he is responsible for this because of his support for income redistribution agreements, falsely marketed as trade agreements, which shifts jobs overseas. The difference between the old higher US wages and the new lower Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, Pakistani and Indian wages go straight into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices, and surging dividends.

The result of the Wyden attack has been to weaken the demand sector of the US economy, since everybody but the 1 percent purchases the goods and services necessary to keep the economy chugging along. The 1  percent, instead, invest their money in politicians like Wyden, Mitch McConnell, Orrin Hatch, Earl Blumenauer, as well as in stocks and bonds and other assets. And this is precisely why we have an economy twice the size of 1980, with a population also about twice the size, but which produces fewer and fewer jobs with declining real wages compared to 1980.

Wyden, Hatch and McConnell are notorious in that they have assumed the rich are not sufficiently rich, and so they are supporting the most massive income redistribution scam in US history, the Trans Pacific Partnership. This will soon be voted on in congress. See What the Corporate News Media Refuses to Tell the Public About The Trans-Pacific Partnership: It’s a Massive Income Redistribution Agreement That Will Drive the Middle Class Further into Poverty, While Enriching the Already Wealthy, And Driving Millions of People into the United States Illegally to Depress US Wages Even More–JohnHively.wordpress.com

For more on this study by the Pew Research Institute, click on the link below.

The Middle Class Is Losing Ground, and Now the Rich Want to Make Certain they lose more ground with the Trans Pacific Partnership-Pew Research Center

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What is the Federal Reserve Really Doing When It Just Raised Interest Rates? It’s Redistributing Your Income to the 1 Percent. In other words, it’s welfare time once again–for the rich

Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen announced Wednesday, December 16 that the Fed will raise short term interest rates by .25 percent. That means interest rates are going to rise for the 99 percent; from 15 to 17 percent on credit cards, for example. Home mortgage rates, car loans, home equity credit lines, and student loans, among other loans, are going to rise. Home mortgage loans will rise from about 3 percent to roughly 5 percent.

Yet there are no signs of an inflationary spiral, which would in theory spur the Fed into raising rates, which is one of its falsely stated goals. Then there’s high (but not too high) employment, another cherished and false goal of the Fed. For the last six years the US economy has been creating less jobs every year (and with declining wages) than occurred under that alleged dreadful president, Jimmy Carter, whose four years as president also included rising real wages. Carter did this with an economy and population about half of today’s economy.

Preliminary indications are that the US is headed toward a recession deeper and longer than the last one, and we should arrive there somewhere between seven and seventeen months from now. The Fed’s actions exacerbate these indications by redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent, curtailing demand, and hurting the economy, such as a US durable goods sector that is clearly in recession. So what gives? What is the Fed up to?

Despite false statements to the contrary, the Fed actually has pretty much followed only two goals throughout its history, and its latest move is a classic example of this. One goal is to protect the profits and share prices of the big banks, and number two is to protect wealthy investors from their own bad investment decisions. Everybody else is expendable when the Fed undertakes its responsibilities. In other words, the 99 percent is expendable, and often the victims, of the Fed’s actions on behalf of its unstated goals, which is to financially protect the rich.

And so in this most recent Fed action, the Fed is doing its first duty; increasing the earnings and share prices of the big banks at the expense of the 99 percent, which makes it seem, quite accurately, that the relationship between the Fed/Big Banks and the 99 percent is akin to parasites unto their hosts.

Your higher credit payments are going toward greater bank profits, which will provide rising dividends to rich shareholders. Share prices might and should rise, at least in the short term. This is pure income redistribution, and the corporate propaganda network wants you to believe the Fed’s increase in interest rates is to stabilize the economy, or limit non-existent inflationary pressures, or who knows what. But the last thing the corporate press wants you to know is that more of your income is being redistributed by the US Federal Reserve Bank to the rich via higher bank profits, rising shares, and soaring dividends. The rich are going to get richer, and you are going to be more poor.

The ten biggest US banks have many things in common, and one of them is declining share prices since last summer. Clearly, the Fed’s action is intended to reverse the decline.

The ten biggest US banks are:

1 JP Morgan Chase
2. Bank of America
3. Citigroup
4. Wells Fargo
5. US Bancorp
6. Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
7. PNC Bank
8. Capital One
9. HSBC North America Holdings
10. TD Bank US Holding Company

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